Angels Rush In
by natural-blue-26
Summary: The first of Rachel's birthdays that swept past without her aging, Marco went skydiving for her and heard her laughing in the air around him all the way down. M/R cannon musings for the Beta set of 1sentence prompts


**Angels Rush In**

_Marco/Rachel interaction of a slightly one sided nature this time around. (Saving my canonically AU companion for next time.) Time line jumps around a bit, but should be easy enough to follow. _

_True to cannon events, so (if it's still possible for one to be spoiled for this series) consider yourself warned for__** POST-54 SPOILERS**__. _

_Ahem. _

_And "lobstered" is now a word. That is all._

**Walking** – He always walked (strutted) a little taller after he had managed to make her laugh at one of his jokes; Rachel could still coolly look down her nose and over his head until they were older if she was in the mood, though.

**Waltz** – Their head butting natures became so in tune with each other they might as well have been dancers swinging through steps they had danced a thousand times before.

**Wishes** – If Marco truly had gotten everything he ever wanted (not that there was anything wrong with fame, glory, endorsement money, fast cars or big houses, mind you), he wouldn't have had a different piece of arm candy every time he attended a red carpet event.

**Wonder** – For all the time spent thinking about it, Marco never quite figured out where Rachel got the reckless courage that made her sprint ahead of everyone else through life- and then into death.

**Worry** – Until the day he watched it happen, Marco never thought to be truly concerned about Rachel of all people doing something as mundane and common place as _dying_.

**Whimsy** – Most of the time Marco figure it was all in his head, but a few times when he looked at Rachel he _knew_ he saw her looking back the same way.

**Waste/Wasteland** – The analytical part of his brain agreed with Jake's final strategy of sending her specifically after Tom, but the rest of his mind contemplated their lives _his life_ without her and mourned the waste of Rachel's infectious vitality.

**Whiskey and rum** – The first time Marco go well and truly hammered after the war he spent over an hour telling a complete stranger (who, luckily, was NOT a reporter) why Rachel should have been meant for him instead of Tobias.

**War **– While Tobias at least at the admittedly cold comfort that the war had brought he and Rachel together, Marco could only blame the Yeerks for taking her out of the rest of their lives for eternity.

**Weddings** – Marco grit his teeth and bore every wedding he ever went to postwar as a guest and _never_ the lucky bastard at the alter.

**Birthday** – The first of Rachel's birthdays that swept past without her aging, Marco went skydiving _for her_ and heard her laughing in the air around him all the way down.

**Blessing** – It was a good thing the war ended after Rachel died- he would have refused to fight without an enthusiastic "let's do it" to cheer them into battle on principal alone.

**Bias** – No girl he ever dated, flirted with or slept with was ever as beautiful as Rachel- and none of him laughed (or didn't) at his jokes quite the same later.

**Burning** – The dangerous, fiery glint in Rachel's eyes and smile before a big battle always made Marco pull back reflexively from the heat.

**Breathing **– Just once, Marco made it to Cassie's barn before everyone but Rachel had arrived, and the soft light filtering down through the rafters on her deceptively harmless looking napping form made the air catch in his throat.

**Breaking** – It hurt him that for _because of_ his "the sun never rises in the west and Rachel doesn't cry" bullshit she never _ever_ allowed herself to brake down in front of him.

**Belief **– Rachel dying shook his few remaining untarnished beliefs in the nature of the universe.

**Balloon **– Every year after her death, Marco flew off (by private jet, of course) to a different exotic location Rachel had never gotten to experience and released a red balloon up into the heavens to her; if she was watching him, she undoubtedly was laughing and rolling her eyes.

**Balcony** – Rachel glared at Marco when their probably Yeerked (and regardless decidedly evil English teacher) made the two of them read the balcony scene from 'Romeo and Juliet' in front of the class to each other.

**Bane** – "I must have been very, very bad in a past life," Rachel remarked in a bored tone one day after perhaps one too many blonde jokes, "to be assigned you as the daily annoyance of my existence in this one."

**Quiet** – Their rare occasional frosty silence spoke more then any verbal spar they ever had.

**Quirks** – Marco never understood her compulsion to be first to a fight anymore then she comprehended his need to hang back and reanalyze every single detail.

**Question** – "So why him, Rachel?" he asked the empty dawn sky after downing the rest of his whatever it was he had been drinking- paint thinner by the burning sensation in his throat- before wandering out on his deck

**Quarrel** – Rachel fought with Tobias about his humanity, Cassie about her morals and Jake about his decisions, but she only bickered for fun with Marco.

**Quitting** – Marco never stopped trying to find the right words to surprise a true, honest smile out of her.

**Jump** – If she has ever asked him instead of Tobias, his only question would have been "how high?"

**Jester** – As long as he could still bring an eye roll and occasional smile to her face, Marco considered his position as team comedian secure.

**Jousting** – Their daily verbal sparring may have gotten on everyone else's nerves, but it also preserved a sense of much needed normalcy.

**Jewel** – Marco would never tell anyone- for fear of being mocked over how damn sappy it sounded- that he thought Rachel's fierce blue eyes glowed like sapphires; they did it without _him doubting his sanity_ anyways.

**Just** – On the days Marco began to see a little too ruthlessly from Point A to Point B he didn't exactly turn to Cassie to temper his strategy with morality; he found Rachel to shake up his obsessive planning with impulsiveness instead.

**Smirk** – Rachel's take no prisoners smirk was sexier then any other expression a girl ever made around, near or towards him.

**Sorrow** – Unlike Jake, Cassie or Tobias, Marco never mourned Rachel publicly- she would have laughed at him wearing black for her and sobbing over her headstone at the memorial anyways.

**Stupidity **– Marco knew that Rachel had more than the average amount of intelligence in that pretty blonde head of hers, but he never understood how she acted like there was no reason to fight with enough caution to protect her own life.

**Serenade** – Rachel laughed so hard she cried the time he got down on one knee on Cassie's dusty barn floor and belted out an impromptu mishmash of Boyz II Men ballads at her.

**Sarcasm** – {Princess Marco, are you in need of rescue?}

**Sordid** – One time in the valley- he didn't know until later it would be her last night alive on earth- she knocked on his door with not-quite tears in her eyes and dragged him in for a quick, hard kiss that tasted of guilt and missed opportunities and was far shamefully too short to be remembered in detail later.

**Soliloquy **– Marco figured the people a few headstones away assumed he was talking to himself the way they were looking figuratively at him.

**Sojourn** – Marco never lingered long when he drove through Rachel's old neighborhood, but he never stayed away for too long either.

**Share** – After he was declared "dead," on nights when Tobias wasn't there for whatever reason Rachel let him come through her window and escape from reality for awhile too.

**Solitary** – He was surrounded by people who all wanted a piece of him and his "amazing story" all week long, but without them _her_ he was alone.

**Nowhere** – Even before Jake found him lobstered out in the bottom of his pool, Marco realized specifically his love of life spent with girls that weren't quite reckless, impulsive, derisive, or Rachel enough was going nowhere fast.

**Neutral** – He had to school his expression whenever he saw her fly off after a mission with _him_ instead.

**Nuance** – The subtle changes in the tint of Rachel's eye color were enough to clue him in to her moods.

**Near **– Somehow, no matter how much she complained, Rachel never specifically forbade him from sitting near her.

**Natural **– She was the prettiest girl he ever met without the addition of any cosmetics.

**Horizon** – Rachel was always chasing the far edge of the horizon; Marco was more content with watching the view.

**Valiant** – He thought she may have been better served tempering her bravery with more _any_ caution.

**Virtuous** – Marco smiled during postwar interviews and turned up the charm before politely changing the subject every time anyone questioned too closely the brave, selfless persona Rachel had left behind for history to remember.

**Victory** – He knew just how much every battle won (or even the ones simply not lost) had cost her personally mind, body and soul, but he let history remember her the way it wanted anyways when the war itself was over.

**Defeat** – Earth lost many battles against the Yeerk army before it won the war, but Marco observed privately that the Animorphs themselves lost the fight personally the day that Rachel died.


End file.
